Many characters have a specific skill, attack, taunt, evasive maneuver, and/or spell they use more frequently than any of their other ones; this is the character's Signature Move. Sometimes, however, a Signature Move, like a Catch Phrase, may turn out to be more an example of Never Live It Down; i.e. the character doesn't actually use the move that much, but everyone calls it their signature move, most likely because it became a Crowning Moment Of Awesome.

Villains also have these. Frieza's Death Beam and Death Ball. Majin Buu's Vanishing Ball.

Worth noting is that the Kamehameha was Master Roshi's signature move. As in, he invented the thing and made it world famous.

Also worth noting is that Vegeta doesn't have a real Signature Move in that he doesn't keep using the same techniques. He uses the Galick Gun only once in the manga. It is throughout other media that the association comes.

Gogeta and Vegetto both have fusions of signature attacks. For Gogeta, it is Big Bang Kamehameha, and for Vegetto it is Final Kamehameha. Cell takes the signature attacks of several of his genetic sources, most notably Goku's Kamehameha. Because neither Goten nor Kid Trunks truly had a signature move, Gotenks goes and makes one up: The Super Ghost Kamikaze Attack.

Mages can learn multiple spells, and the best mage in this setting is a non-specialised one, because he is therefore more versatile and can counter more spells himself. And yet every single mage tends to have an affinity for a handful of spells which they use against everything. Stiyl has the fire elemental Innocentius, Sherry Cromwell has the golem Ellis, etc.

Touma himself has his signature Anti-Magic punch to finish off his opponents and "break their illusions".

In Ranma ˝, Ranma goes through several signature moves before developing the Hiryuu Shoten Ha (the "Heavenly Dragon Ascension Wave" that creates a gigantic tornado) and The Rival Ryoga his ShiShi Hokodan ("Lion Roar Shot" — a Ki Attack powered by sheer literal angst). Even Kuno has his "Blue Thunder Attack". Spoofed with Genma and his "Crouch of the Wild Tiger" (which is shameless grovelling).

Charmander and as a Charmeleon and Charizard (and for that matter all of Ash's fire types) has Flamethrower. And in nearly every battle, Charizard uses Seismic Toss.

Ash's Squirtle has Skull Bash, Bulbasaur has Solar Beam, Treecko has Bullet Seed then Leaf Blade after evolving, Corphish has Crabhammer, Snivy has attract, Oshawott has Razor Shell, and Leavanny has String Shot.

Aura Sphere is treated as this for Lucario. It makes sense, as the two were introduced at the same time and every Lucario since has used this attack.

In Pokemon Special, the Elemental Hyper Beams eventually become this for the Dex Holders of the first three generations and their starters. Meanwhile, Yellow, commanding Red's Pikachu along with her own and Gold's Pichu, gets Volt Tackle.

Pretty much everyone in Bleach only has one or two moves, so by definition this would apply.

Ichigo's Getsuga Tenshou, a "slashing projectile" of some kind, shared with his father. And there is also a more powerful versions, which Ichigo unlocked.

Byakuya's Senbonzakura, where his sword splits into shards that look like sakura petals and cut the target a new one. He also has several signature kido spells and specialises in Flash Step.

Renji's attack where the sections of his sword split apart and fly at the target: higa-zekko.

Higa-zekko is a Desperation Attack - he can only use it when his sword is already in pieces. His Bankai firing a blast of energy, Hikotsu Taihou, is a more fitting example.

Mayuri's poisons wilt different deliveries - his shikai is a poisoned sword, his bankai is a giant centipede with infant's face that breathes a cloud of the stuff.

Although Rukia Kuchiki has used other kido spells at times, in combat she regularly uses "Hadou 33" (Soukatsui, "Blue Fireball").

Suffice it to say, everyone's Shikai is their first signature move, and if they have a Bankai, it's their second. And then there are the Kido.

Aside from just being ridiculously powerful, Aizen really favors the simple horizontal slash to the midsection.

Negi, the lead of Mahou Sensei Negima! has favored Jovis Tempestas Fulguriens (Jupiter's Storm of Thunder) as an important finisher in his arsenal since day 1. He has gained much stronger spells over time, but he never really stops using it.

Fate Averruncus is fond of Pnoe Petras (Breath of Stone), which he usually uses to petrify people, thereby winning without wasting his time with an actual fight.

Setsuna's seems to be either Zanganken (Stone-Cleaving Sword), which was the first technique she ever used in the seriesnote attentive Ken Akamatsu fans will note that it was also the first move Motoko and Kuroumaru ever use as well or ShinRaikouken (True Lightning Sword) for the incredible display it put on during her fight with Evangeline.

In Slayers Lina tend to express her strong disapproval in a way predictable even more than impressive. "Dragon Slaaaaavu"! There's also Amelia and her Vistfanrank spell, and Zelgadis' Astral Vine spell, both which act as enhancements. The aformentioned two also use the Ra Tilt spell frequently, usually together. In the novel series, there is also Luke's Ruby-Eye Blade spell.

There's a ton of them in Sailor Moon, each usually lasting until the next upgrade:

Every major character in Mobile Fighter G Gundam has at least one, but in particular the School of Touhou Fuhai has the various Finger attacks (including Domon's Shining Finger and Bakunetsu God Finger and Master Asia's Darkness Fingernote The Expanded Universe gives him two more, the Sunshine Finger in the manga 7th Fight and the Heartful Finger he used while a member of the Shuffle Alliance) and the Sekiha Tenkyoken.

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing has a really strange invocation of this in Endless Waltz, where Duo recognizes that the enemy machine attacking him is piloted by his friend Trowa because it uses his technique...namely, spamming his Gatling gun. The manga adaptation fixes this by having the tell be Trowa's use an acrobatic dodge.

Kamui Den: Kamui's most iconic technique is the "kasumi-kiri," in which he draws a short sword from a hidden position in the back of his obi and cuts his oponent horizontally. A close seoond is the "izunatoshi" used during tree top battles with other ninja.

Tiger Mask has a few: apart from the real-world wrestlers, the various original characters tend to have a signature move that often doubles as Finishing Move. For his own, our protagonist has four of them: the Backdrop (a real world wrestling move that he adopted as his Finishing Move at the start of his Heel-Face Turn and never fully abandoned), the Super Tiger Drop (his first original finisher, originally tested on a bear. It worked), the Fujiyama Tiger Breaker (created to replace the Super Tiger Drop after Mr. Chi showed to the world how you counter it) and the Tiger V (his final finisher, created to take on Miracle 3 who could counter the Fujiyama Tiger Breaker).

Also, Tiger Mask used to have a signature move called Tiger Choke, but had stopped using it even before his Heel-Face Turn for two reasons: one, it's so lethal that it was banned in thirteen states of the US as attempted murder; two, it's so terrible that even Tiger's Cave wrestlers are horrified by it, and even Tiger Mask preferred using it only in special cases, like when a Tiger's Cave wrestler punched Kenta. The one time it was used on screen, the guy who punched Kenta was nearly killed in seconds.

In Sword Art Online, there are randomly obtained "extra skills" that can be earned through difficult circumstances. Some are easier than others—Klein's Katana skill can be obtained simply by using Curved Swords a lot—but many others are so rare, with requirements no one understands, that they turn into this trope. One of the most notable is Kirito's Dual Swords skill, which he kept hidden for as long as possible to give him an edge. No one else has it.

While several characters in Rurouni Kenshin have a favorite move, the most prominent is Saito's Gatotsu, as his fighting style is centered entirely around four variants of that move. He even explains why a signature move is a good idea: In an environment where most fights are life or death, you rarely face the same opponent more than once. Therefore, you're better off learning one move really well than trying to learn a wide variety of techniques.

While it's not his original move, Sanosuke essentially adopts Futae No Kiwami as his signature move during the latter half of the manga. It does well enough against most foes, provided they aren't Shishio...

Several characters in Yu-Gi-Oh! have signature cards, obviously it's pretty much always the most powerful card in their deck, but some of the more prominent characters get what can be called "Signature Combos"; Yugi likes to hide his Dark Magician inside the Magical Hats to protect it from stonger monsters, Joey uses Time Wizard to age his Baby Dragon until it Takes A Level In Badass, and Kaiba has what amounts to "play as many dragons as possible as fast as possible" and deck destruction combos.

Aside from their signature magical attack, every Pretty Cure and ally has her own physical attack move that she constantly ends up doing. For example, White's twirling front flip, Rose's elbow jab, or Sunshine's use of actual martial arts moves.

Batman has the Offhand Backhand. People DO NOT sneak on Batman without getting a faceful of wrist and knuckles for their trouble.

Doctor Strange, when appearing outside of his own stories, has a handful of spells he uses pretty regularly: a beam from the Eye of Agamotto, the Shields of the Seraphim, and the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak.

In Star Wars, Darth Vader is associated with the Force Choke, Force Lightning is Palpatine's favorite ability (something which Count Dooku was also no slouch at), and everyone remembers Obi Wan's use of the Jedi Mind Trick. Oddly, the films never show Vader using the Force Choke on an actual enemy, just people who've failed him or done something else to piss him off.

Troy, Achilles has his jumping downward stab, which he uses in his Single-Stroke Battle at the beginning of the film and several times after. Hector is the only one who can defend against it, showing that he is a Worthy Opponent.

Harry also has a reputation for producing Patronuses. (These are essentially anti-Dementor apparitions.) Dementors are Harry's worst fear, so it would make sense. Considering the effort he had to put into getting the spell to work at all, it's deserved. When he told a group of older wizards, likely in their 40s and older, he could produce a full body Patronous and not amorphous shield, they were shocked and impressed. It should be noted that Harry's Patronus is the same as his father's Patronus and Animagus form, a stag, which makes it even more significant.

Ginny Weasley has the Bat Bogey Hex.

Inverted for Antonin Dolohov, a minor Death Eater appearing in the book series, where he is almost always at the receiving end of the Full Body-Bind Curse (if he appears, that is).

Gilderoy Lockhart has a talent in Memory Charms, though we only get to see him directly using it once where it backfires on him.

While certainly not the only wizard to use it in the series, it's hard to say that Lord Voldemort's signature move is anything other than Avada Kedavra.

Crucio is his other signature move, not to mention Bellatrix Lestrange's main one.

The Dresden Files: Harry Dresden and his Fuego spell. To the point where, in one book, his enemies were able to track him based on his use of fire magic, and in another book people kept saying how out of character it was that he wasn't using it. Harry has such a reputation as a pyromaniac that one book opens, "The building was on fire,and it wasn't my fault."note And, technically speaking, it wasn't him that started the fire; it was the flying monkeys that were throwing flaming poo at him. Though he'd provoked them by swiping a box of puppies... It Makes Sense in Context, alright.

In Warrior Cats, Firestar's favourite move is his Playing Possum skill. He even uses it to defeat Scourge, the Final Boss of the original series. It gets lampshaded later on in the series (specifically in The Forgotten Warrior) by Spirit Antpelt, who points out to Ivypool that it was such a cool move that everyone copied it off Firestar and now it's just a tired old trick. He then gets erased from existence.

Live Action TV

On the Seattle sketch-comedy Almost Live!, Billy Quan always finished his "Mind Your Manners" shorts with a double-footed jump-kick that could go for blocks, travel around corners, wait for an elevator..

Picard has one named after him, the Picard Maneuver, in which he uses a rapid jump to warp speed to make it appear as though his ship is in two places at once. It is never used after the episode in which it is introduced, which makes some sense as Commander Data comes up with a defense against it; what makes less sense is that it's never used before the episode either, as there is canonically no known defense against it before Data comes up with one.

A possible explanation is that its both difficult to pull off (precise timing of moving faster than light for a micro-second) and extremely risky (run into anything during the maneuver and you could end up destroying your ship)

On Heroes, Sylar really likes to use his telekinesis to slice through people's foreheads. Originally, this was just practicality: his power required access to his victims' brains in order to steal their abilities. Then he started doing it to everyone, whether they had an ability to steal or not. In Volume Four, he recovers a repressed memory and discovers that he learned the move from his biological father, who used it to murder his mother in front of him when he was a child.

Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger: Joe/Gokai Blue realizes that Mentor Cid Bamick was turned into Barizorg when the latter uses Cid's Signature Move (an X-shaped Sword Beam). Joe himself begins using the move, particularly when he fights the Mad Scientist who cyborged Cid and the battle where he finally kills Barizorg.

The Kamen Rider franchise has a Diving Kick known as the Rider Kick. Nearly every headlining Rider has some form of it as their default Finishing Move, and the few that don't will do a leaping kick on occasion anyway.

It was more like a "signature skill", but in Cheers, Coach claimed that his specialty when he played professional baseball was injuring himself. As in, purposely getting beaned in order to gain a base. Norm claimed he held the league record in HBPs ("Hit By Pitchers"). In one episode he claimed this was his way of meeting girls he was interested in - it helped gain sympathy.

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin, of course, had the Stone Cold Stunner, but was also a frequent user of the Lou Thesz Press (usually followed by repeated punches to the face), and often uses repeated stomps in the corner.

Rey has a few other springboard finishers, but they are always preceded by 619, which could account for popularity of the move.

There are a lot of wrestlers that have a move that isn't their Finishing Move but is just as iconic to the wrestler, they're usually a move that is hard to do or done really well. While it is extremely rare for a wrestler to get a pin from these moves, they are frequently used as part of a wrestler's Five Moves of Doom leading up to their Finishing Move.

Shawn Michaels' Diving Elbow Drop has never gotten a pinfall, but it's still seen once a match.

The late Eddie Guerrero's triple rolling vertical suplex, nicknamed the Three Amigos.

Sting has the Stinger Splash. Other wrestlers, such as Shelton Benjamin, have adopted the move as a tribute to him.

Roman Reigns has his dropkick to opponent on the apron and his Superman Punch.

Daniel Bryan has the Yes! Lock submission hold, the running knee to the face (Colloquially dubbed "Solid Knee +"), and the repeated kicks to a kneeling opponent's chest, before a kick to the back of the head.

In Dungeons & Dragons tradition arcane spells are named for their creatorsnote The rest of those spells are supposed to be mostly named this way too, but by now become too old and widespread to remember.. Sometimes this shows the named wizard's predisposition to one effect with different power levels.

Spells & Magic mechanics supports signature spells as one of known spells at each spell level. A wizard repeats the normal research procedure for a spell to get all fine details, spends a slot or CP and have a mix of specialist wizard's bonus and fighter's weapon specialization: one extra memorization and either +2 to level variables or -2 to saving throw or -3 to casting time. note And it stacks with specialist bonus. E.g. 1-lvl invoker memorizes Projectile Spell: 1 basic + 1 as invoker + 1 as a signature spell = 3, x 2 bolts (as if 3-rd level) instead of one = 6 x more total damage.

In D&D 3 "spell secret" ability allows to permanently apply one of metamagical modifications to a known spell (more spells with levels), but for some reason it's only class ability of Wu Jen from Complete Arcane and Mystic from Dragon Magazine. d20 core Archmage can make a spell-like ability (no preparation, no components, harder to negate) from a known spell, but it's not the same as normal casting.

D&D 3 Player's Guide to Faerun has Signature Spell feat which allows to cast one mastered spell instead of any arcane spells of the same or higher level, much like D&D 3 cleric converts into cure spells.

The Solar Exalted actually have a Charm, Thunderbolt Attack Prana, that allows them to designate "signature attacks." By using said signature attack and paying the cost of the Charm, they're able to do ridonkulous amounts of damage.

In The Dresden Files, wizards can take rote spells as these, meaning spells that the wizard has cast so often and regularly that they always work without risk of backlash or fallout. Harry's include the above-mentioned Fuego, and his shield spell.

Stunts in the Fate system in general can be readily used to model this — in fact, reflecting a particular character's specialties and repertoire of tricks beyond just their ranks in the system's various fairly broad skills is mainly what they're for (and not just for combat, either). Spirit Of The Century even has a literal predefined "Signature Strike" feat which allows an (unarmed) signature move to be used up to once per fight scene for potential extra damage in the form of an additional consequence above and beyond whatever the attack would normally inflict...though this may be a bit of a subversion in that the mechanical effect is essentially the same for every character who takes said feat, and it's not altogether easy to acquire in the first place.

Each Clan in Vampire: The Requiem has three Disciplines that they are good at and one of them will be their specialty.

Pretty much anything Ivy does counts, simply because she has a unique weapon and is pretty distracting as a fighter. If anything, her "Summon Suffering" may be Ivy's single one, because it's hard to pull off and, let's face it, looks awesome.

Donkey Kong started off throwing barrels in his debut game because those happened to be present in the construction site, but the Donkey Kong Country games find him throwing barrels in more variegated circumstances.

Genis Sage in Tales of Symphonia always uses Fireball in cutscenes, even after he has gained much stronger spells.

This is because due to the nature of the skill/spell learning system in the game, the only spell he is guaranteed to have at all points in the game is Fireball. If you're doing a very good Low Level Run, for example, he might not have any of his other basic spells, and you can, if you learn all the spells of one type (Strike or Technical), switch quite a few, if not all, of his spells to the other type in as few as one battle, if you're up against a foe with enough HP to withstand casting their base spells multiple times (just forget all the spells you want to change before the battle, then start casting each element's base spells until he learns the more advanced versions).

Many Touhou characters have signature spell card attacks. Reimu has Fantasy Heaven and/or Fantasy Seal, Marisa has Master Spark (which she stole from Yuuka and made her own), Cirno has Icicle Fall (Easy) and Perfect Freeze, Patchouli has Royal Flare, and so on. Some of these only come to light in the huge doujin side, such as Yukari's Mesh of Light and Darkness.

Zero of Mega Man X and Zero has the Z-Saber combo, consisting of three (in X8 it can be upgraded to five) slashes with his infamous Laser Blade. In the same series, Axl's Copy Shot could count as well.

Even older than Zero's triple-slash combo was his dual-Z-Buster-then-Sword-Beam combo from X2, which made recurring appearances in X5 and X6, along with Zero 3 and ZX, if you count Omega. Curiously, you never quite have access to it when playing as Zero (the closest we ever got was X3, and even that was just a Z-Saber slash, with no sword beam).

Not quite. The player can get access to the full move during X3, but as X, rather than Zero. If you do the appropriate miniboss fight near the end of the game with Zero, the trashed remains of said miniboss battle will crash on top of him; X will arrive shortly after, and Zero will give his Z-Saber to him, essentially giving him the exact same combination after an additional charge level (charge lv4 = X-Buster blast No.1, X-Buster Blast No.2, Z-Saber slash with Saber Beam).

And of course, Mega Man himself has his trusty old Mega Buster, which is his initial weapon in all of his games and serves him well through the entire game, since it has infinite energy, unlike his other weapons that he gains later.

MachTornado seems to be this for Meta Knight, making a number of appearances after its debut in Kirby Super Star, including Meta Knight's neutral B special in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and a Limit Break variant in Meta Knightmare Ultra from Kirby Super Star Ultra. In the animecontinuity his signature move was Sword Beam.

In Final Fantasy VI, every character has a unique battle command, although some (such as Celes' Runic Blade) are too situational to count as true Signature Moves, while others (such as Edgar's Tools) open up a menu of options with no one option being truly Signature throughout the entire game. Those that do count include Locke's Steal/Mug, Sabin's Aurabolt, Banon's Heal, Cyan's Dispatch, and Shadow's Shuriken.

Shin Megami Tensei or Persona games featuring Alice show her regularly possessing the destructive "Die For Me!" attack. She summons armies of corrupted Wonderland soldiers and has them skewering her enemies from the sky.

The equivalent Hama move ("Die For Me!" counts as Mudo) is "Samsara", traditionally possessed by Daisoujou. (A "daisoujou" is a Buddhist monk who opted to starve to death, drinking tea that contains small amounts of embalming fluid until his demise, thereby creating a "living Buddha".)

Many bosses have signature moves that are pretty relevant to the mythology behind them. Harihara has Chaturbuja, Vaikunta and Three Worlds (changed to Reincarnate in english), Brahman has Brahma Sutra and Izanami has Thousand Curses. For the Law and Chaos heroes, Jimenez and Zelenin have Left Hand and Right Hand respectively.

Belial has Sodom's Fire/Fire of Gomorrah, and Nebiros has Necromancy.

Lucifer has Evil Gleam/Shine, dealing heavy Almighty damage with a chance of Charm/Confuse in most of the games he appears in.

Shiva has Pralya, which either does severe Pierce damage to all enemies with a chance of Fear (Persona 3) or severe Physical damage to all enemies with a chance of a One-Hit Kill (Persona 4).

Sora has Strike Raid, Sonic Blade, Ars Arcanum and Ragnarok, his special abilities from the first game, they were originally left out of Kingdom Hearts II, but the Final Mix re-release of the game added them back as the abilities of the new Limit Form power up.

Riku's Dark Aura, which has been usable as an ultimate attack in all of his playable appearances since the first game (where it was the strongest attack of Riku possessed by Xehanort's Heartless in his second boss fight at Hollow Bastion), although he had another version of Dark Aura in KHIIwhen present as a party member for The World That Never Was that functioned as a volley of Dark Firaga-like projectiles.

God of War's Kratos, and his Plume of Prometheus combo (Square, Square, Triangle).

Puyo Puyo' has Arle with Bayoeen. Funnily enough, it started as a status move that forces an enemy to stall for a couple of turns, but it has then become her strongest attack, being the last spell used in her chains. It even serves as her Limit Break in Madoh Monogatari.

Devil May Cry: Dante's Stinger is arguably his signature move; it's available in every game fairly early on and is incredibly useful (that or suspending enemies in the air with gunfire). Vergil's Summoned Swords or his Diagonal Cut could count for him.

World of Warcraft: Most class specializations have a single move that provides the focus of their move pool: Hunters, for example, have Aimed Shot, Kill Command, and Explosive Shot for Marksman, Beast Mastery, and Survival respectively.

Jack Noir from Homestuck has the attack Red Miles, which causes branching red tendrils to extend from his hand and rip apart anything and everything it touches. The visuals are reminiscent of blood vessels forming, which is fitting given Jack's nature as the cancer infecting the kid's session

Haley is big into sneak attacks. Meanwhile, early in Miko's run, Detect Evil was her signature ability, but it quickly shifted into three consecutive slash attacks.

Meteor Swarm has become Xykon's signature move. He killed Roy with onenote well, actually, he killed his zombie dragon that Roy was riding on, then the sudden stop at the end of the fall killed him, and almost killed Vaarsuvius and O-Chul with one.

Heartcore: Ame's signature spell is the "Devil Drive", a combination fire/dark spell that burns its victims and, in the event of a direct hit, causes immense pain and psychological torment.

In Girl Genius, the Heterodynes have heterodyning. This is a real thing, and involves mixing sounds to cancel out distractions or produce entirely new notes, but the Heterodynes can do it instinctively, to the point that when Agatha started breaking through, her heterodyning was the first sign of it.

Tower of God: When he returned, Baam had mastered the Hwa Jeop Gong Pa Sool◊, a techique only used by experienced Slayers of the criminal organization FUG. This gets him a bit of attention. Another signature move of Baam's is to freeze anything and everybody that can move.

Web Original

Whateley Universe: Chaka's own version of the Hadoken, the 'Chaka Chaka Bang Bang'. And Aquerna's signature move, which may or may not have a real name: 'Squirrel Scampers Over Tree'.

Telekinesis could also be this for Twilight Sparkle. Although it's very basic magic used by all unicorns, Twilight's potency with it is unequaled and she uses it constantly for absolutely everything, from holding a pen to transporting kaiju-sized giant bears. When in battle, her signature move is a purple blast of energy which she tends to spam a lot.

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